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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415794">The Ghost of You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Make_It_Worse/pseuds/Make_It_Worse'>Make_It_Worse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Accidental Voyeurism, Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, Masturbation, Masturbation in Shower, Medical Trauma, Mild Gore, Morbid Humor, Personification of Death, Serious Injuries, Supernatural Elements, Voyeurism, death but funny, no beta we die like men, not really gore but brief depictions of injuries</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:29:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,981</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415794</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Make_It_Worse/pseuds/Make_It_Worse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Being dead is a lot duller than Connor anticipated. Not that he’d given the matter much thought at the age of thirty-one. Sure, he was starting to see laugh lines bracketing his mouth and he’d given his dermatologist’s recommendation for daily sunscreen a lot more thought, but he wasn’t nearing the end of his life by any means.</p><p>In his time since he’d taken a bus to the spine, Connor had learned Death often stopped for those not looking out for him. Death was an ok enough guy after Connor had gotten a chance to know him; cold and weird as hell, but ok. It wasn’t really his fault that he was in charge of punching people’s tickets. Connor felt a little sorry for him after the years crept on and his rage at his untimely demise faded into a yawning eternity of people watching. </p><p>Of course, Connor was bored, but people loathed Death. They cursed him. They shrieked in his face and wailed their misery at every parting. Death didn’t even get to choose, which Connor declared as “Complete bullshit.” After all, if a man has to be one of the most reviled and feared characters in the human psyche, he might as well get to earn it.<br/>___<br/>Connor might be a bit dead, but there's more to life he needs to discover.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hank Anderson/Connor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Ghost of You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Being dead is a lot duller than Connor anticipated. Not that he’d given the matter much thought at the age of thirty-one. Sure, he was starting to see laugh lines bracketing his mouth and he’d given his dermatologist’s recommendation for daily sunscreen a lot more thought, but he wasn’t nearing the end of his life by any means.</p><p>In his time since he’d taken a bus to the spine, Connor had learned Death often stopped for those not looking out for him. Death was an ok enough guy after Connor had gotten a chance to know him; cold and weird as hell, but ok. It wasn’t really his fault that he was in charge of punching people’s tickets. Connor felt a little sorry for him after the years crept on and his rage at his untimely demise faded into a yawning eternity of people watching.</p><p>Of course, Connor was bored, but people loathed Death. They cursed him. They shrieked in his face and wailed their misery at every parting. Death didn’t even get to choose, which Connor declared as “Complete bullshit.” After all, if a man has to be one of the most reviled and feared characters in the human psyche, he might as well get to earn it.</p><p>Death hadn’t warmed up to Connor for several years. Not that Connor would call their relationship friendly; it was more like Death tolerated his existence for lack of a suitable alternative. He’d already killed Connor once. He didn’t have many other weapons up his ludicrously long sleeves. Centuries of verbal vitriol from the human race had taken their toll as well, leaving him guarded. Hell, Connor had been a bit of a prick on their first meeting. His fist swung hard and fast, colliding with knuckle-bruising force against a cheekbone hidden in a black hood.</p><p>Death had tilted his head skyward in a spitting tantrum, “Do you SEE? Do you SEE how people react when they meet me?” All the clover within a three-mile radius wilted at the question, but the dandelions seemed oddly impervious to Death’s anger.</p><p>As if death himself wasn’t enough to try to wrap his brain around, Connor’s own blood was trickling across the concrete toward them. Which led him to wonder how he could think if he’d shed is mortal coil, and, presumably, his very human brain along with it. The resulting headache took him to his knees amid several unique swear words from death.</p><p>“Deep breaths, Connor. No, n—NO! Don’t think about your lungs. Just breathe.” Connor briefly wondered if Death knew everyone’s names or just the ones he plucked out of existence that day.</p><p>It was one of several questions racing around his mind (chief among them being <em>why me?</em>) but the query that won the battle for his mouth was, “Were you talking to <em>God</em>?”</p><p>Death had snorted with enough force that it made Connor’s nose ache, “I’m sure he’s tickled pink by the notion.”</p><p>It was a non-answer. It had taken the better part of a decade for Connor to come to terms with the fact that Death rarely dealt out straights. It took another decade for death to come to terms with the fact that Connor wasn’t going to leave him alone.</p><p>“Why are you following me?” Death had whirled on Connor as if he’d only just then noticed the dark-eyed shadow that had been walking alongside him for more than a quarter of a century.</p><p>“Why not?” Connor answered smugly, pleased to feed Death a bit of his own annoying cake. Just desserts indeed. Death had thrown his thin arms up into the air, revealing dark hands for a fleeting moment in the process. Connor squirreled away the information, pocketing it alongside other rummaged details.</p><p>“I told you before,” Death began with more impatience than Connor imagined possible for someone so short, “there is no big picture, there is no grander meaning, and there is no heaven with fat cherubs and be-harped angels.”</p><p>“I know,” Connor had replied with serene smugness, “but there is you and me and whatever we decide to do with our mutual eternity.” Death had groaned and called Connor several unbecoming names.</p><p>Connor waited for the muttering to subside before feigning a casual tone, “Unless you want to tell me how to get off this plane of existence and out of your hair.”</p><p>Death whirled around, raising his walking stick as if to smite Connor for being an annoying ass. Connor mostly found it funny that Death had a walking stick instead of a scythe.</p><p>Before Death could work himself into a lather, Connor interjected, “I know you know more than you’ve told me. I’ve seen you,” he broke off to wiggle his fingers in the air as if trying to hook a word out of the sky,” <em>vamoose</em> people on to…well, wherever the shit you send them, I guess.”</p><p>It was eerie whenever Death looked him straight in the face. He couldn’t rightly know it given the massive hood, but his skin crawled as if plunged into a vat of worms, “How do you know if where I send them is better?”</p><p>Connor swallowed audibly and viscous saliva oozed down his throat with a hot wave of nausea on its heels. The queasiness clung doggedly to his clammy not-quite-skin until Death turned away. Death had never bothered to explain the phenomenon (not that Death was inclined to explain <em>anything</em>), but Connor knew better than to think too hard about how his post-mortem body could perform certain very live-body behaviors when under duress. He might vomit, which he preferred to avoid given that ectoplasm tasted worse than diesel smelled.</p><p>Connor estimated he’d have at least half a decade of the silent treatment before Death would speak to him again. He’d nearly collided straight into Death’s cloaked back ten minutes later when Death abruptly stopped and turned his head skyward as if listening.</p><p>Death sagged like a child being admonished for leaving his homework on the kitchen table before spitting wetly on the grass. It sizzled and curled into ash.</p><p>“I’ll grant you this,” Death began without preamble, “I deliver people, it’s true. But not everyone’s destination is the same, and I don’t get much say in the matter. You aren’t done here yet. That’s all I know.”</p><p>The thought of an unfulfilled purpose inflated Connor’s spirits like a horse spotting a familiar barn in the distance. He walked with more pep and he shone obnoxiously bright. It kept several households from a good night’s sleep for days until Death motioned for him to go outside.</p><p>“Stop bothering these people. They’re already freaked out enough by my presence as it is. They could use the sleep.” Connor didn’t understand at first why Death preferred staying in houses. There was no need. They didn’t feel the weather, they had nothing to fear in the night, and they didn’t need sleep. Mostly, it was boring as hell. They had to keep quiet and still to avoid spooking the house’s occupants. They weren’t <em>strictly</em> visible at night, but people became more perceptive between sunset and sunrise. Connor had wondered more than once if Death was the reason he’d felt so out of sorts in the days leading up to his own demise.</p><p>As the years wore on, however, Connor learned why they haunted houses filled with life. He was bored and he was lonely, but, mostly, he was <em>hungry</em>. It hurt to go so long without human touch, without making a friend laugh, or holding a lover’s hand. Watching people mingle, giggle, and fuck helped fill the void.</p><p>“Don’t you feel a bit perverted?” Connor had asked Death the second time they both cast their eyes upward toward the bedroom on the next floor. Soft moans trickled down like snowflakes begging Connor to catch them on his tongue. He wasn’t sure how it worked, but he’d watched in rapt fascination through several layers of flooring and drywall as the couple undulated to a beat they could only sense in their bones. It pulsed like thunder against Connor’s skin before culminating in a <em>bing </em>suspiciously reminiscent of a microwave.</p><p>Death must’ve been smiling because the scent of freshly baked bread and blushing flowers billowed out from him in waves. Connor knew their emotions manifested in strange ways in the mortal realm. Death’s favorite smells blossomed out of his hood whenever he was particularly pleased. For Connor, he cast an unnatural glow that penetrated human eyes (if only to a small degree). It also had the annoying side effect of rupturing the delicate filaments in nearby lightbulbs.</p><p>“Not to judge a man on his voyeuristic preferences, but what has you so tickled about them?” Connor had gestured up to the ceiling where the frantic movement of bodies had slowed to something reverential and heartbreakingly romantic. Connor had never known intimacy in life like he’d seen after death. He’d <em>fucked</em>, sure, but he’d never held anyone or been held after the fact. He’d never laughed softly like the couple upstairs, wrapped up in their own silly lives and simple pleasures.</p><p>The room’s temperature dropped a few tangible degrees and Death made a shooing motion at him, “If you’re going to be jealous and <em>moody</em> then take it outside. I’m trying to work.”</p><p>Connor had tripped over the coffee table in his haste to tackle death into the couch, “You are <em>not</em> killing them!” He hadn’t meant to shout it with so much force. A vase teetered dangerously on an adjacent shelf before settling down again. They both exhaled as it stilled itself and Death slapped him upside the head.</p><p>“You <em>idiot</em>. I <em>deliver</em> people. Here, there, everywhere. From life to death and back again. Now <em>shut up</em> so I can make this baby.” Connor’s head had nearly jumped off his shoulders and rolled to the floor in shocked surprise.</p><p>“You make <em>children</em>?” There were several new bits of knowledge floating around in the grey space between his ears, but this startling revelation seemed the most pertinent.</p><p>“Yes—well, no. Look, it’s complicated. Now sit down and be quiet. A botched seed is a dangerous thing.” Connor wasn’t sure if Death was full of shit on the matter or not, but he didn’t think his conscience would allow him to go on existing if he ruined a baby.</p><p>It was uncomfortable watching Death work in this way. Connor had grown used to thinking of Death as an ambivalent character in some puppet master’s grand play. Seeing him create life was much more disturbing than watching him take it. Where did it come from? Was it reincarnation? Repurposed remains? Connor shuddered, deciding not to think about it too hard.</p><p>It took two years and three more seedlings for Connor to confirm his suspicions. Death didn’t like to linger after weaving life, as if he didn’t <em>belong</em>. They always moved onto a new temporary home before the sun could rise over the unsuspecting mother-to-be.</p><p>When Connor had asked, Death had gestured vaguely, “Sunrises and sunsets. They have power. Disturbing power. New life has a hard enough time hanging on without my presence tainting things.”</p><p>They always ended up at a bachelor’s house afterward, as if Death needed a break from life. It’s how they found themselves outside of 115 Michigan Drive on a frigid wintry night. They could walk the world faster than blinking, but they always seemed to find themselves back in Detroit. Connor had hated it at first, always winding up where he’d died, but Detroit was home.</p><p>Connor finds himself strangely drawn to the lone man occupying the peeling wallpapered walls of the dingy home. He knows better than to bring it up with Death. He would snort and accuse Connor of a savior complex. Death chose the house because of its hopeless aura after so much optimism in the last home.</p><p>Still, there is something plucky about this <em>Hank</em>. He owns a dog and walks him often. He goes to work (albeit, not often on time), and he leaves himself funny if somewhat depressing sticky notes on his mirror.</p><p>“You’re projecting,” Death <em>tsked</em> at him. The first time he’d made the accusation, Connor had fluffed up like an insulted hen. Death had tapped his head then pointed at the nearby wall. A mental image straight out of Connor’s empty brain pocket lit up the low-res TV screen like an old-timey film.</p><p>This time, Connor squawked in embarrassment, blinking several times to try to clear away the daydream. Not that Death often commented on anything Connor conjured up, but he doesn’t feel much like letting Death swirl his finger in private thoughts. Blinking rapidly to clear the picture, a still frame of Hank laughing lingers for several moments.</p><p>“You want him to be happy.” It isn’t a question and Connor gives no answer.</p><p>“Do you even <em>know</em> how to be happy?” Death presses with uncharacteristic nosiness. Connor responds by giving Death the double middle finger.</p><p>“Maybe I would,” he resumes the conversation hours later well after the crickets had gone to bed, “if you hadn’t taken everything.” The frosty, tense silence stretches uneasily between them and the house’s furnace grumbles to life in irritation at their protracted bickering. The entire world goes silent during the darkest hours between one and two in the morning and Death declines to break the unspoken rule. The mute tension chills the air around them unchecked.</p><p>They don’t sleep, not really, but they could drift through the night if they wanted to. Connor isn’t surprised to find Death missing when he brings his mind back to the present. After so many years, they knew how to press each other where it hurt. There had been several years of perpetual winter between the two of them on more than one occasion. Connor was always the first to thaw; he wasn’t as used to the isolation as Death was.</p><p>The vague sense of guilt eases from Connor in fractions as he watches Hank blunder around the kitchen in a sleepy stupor specific to humans. Connor hadn’t yet mastered the art of touching mortal objects, but he could influence them if he focused hard enough. He spends the next several weeks trying to improve Hank’s mood to keep melancholy at bay. The house has enough sadness without Connor’s moping adding to the pile. It helps immensely that he finds Hank fascinating in a way other humans failed to inspire.</p><p>He tries to repose on the couch as Hank does—relaxed and at ease with himself. Hank’s thighs spread wide, claiming a cushion and a half of the two-seater couch to himself as he watches reruns of <em>Family Feud</em>. Hank always laughs at Steve Harvey’s double clap as if he doesn’t know it’s coming. Connor finds the little quirk of Hank’s lip endearing.</p><p>Connor had wondered at first why Hank felt the need to take up so much space. He was a large man, certainly, and it’s not as if he <em>knew</em> Connor was trying to unwind alongside him. Still, claiming a whole sofa seemed grand and sumptuous for a man who denied himself simple comforts. It wasn’t until Connor had seen Hank shower that he understood.</p><p>He hadn’t been <em>spying</em>, not that he had any qualms about watching people in their most vulnerable, private states any longer, but that was beside the point. He hadn’t gone looking intentionally. He couldn’t control how his sight worked or that it allowed him to peer through walls. When he heard the unmistakable sound of pleasure, his ears zeroed in on the source, alerting him to a show delicious enough to devour.</p><p>Hank was a large man in every sense, Connor learned that morning. Hank had gone to bed sober and risen early. He had well over an hour before he needed to leave for work and still arrive on schedule. Hank had taken his time in the shower that morning, dragging a faded washrag with a weathered and no-longer-recognizable pattern across the broad expanse of his chest. His eyes remained closed, but Connor could catch glimpses of Hank’s thoughts.</p><p>Connor didn’t have a reflection anymore, but he could feel the heat of a blush infuse his cheeks without needing to see it. Tasting carnal human desires often left him dazed as if wine drunk for the first time. He withdrew from Hank’s mind before the man could sense him, watching Hank’s arousal swell with rapt attention.</p><p>Connor had exhaled an unnecessary breath he’d been holding when Hank’s hand finally drifted to stroke at his impression girth. A wisp of cool air wafted from his lips, grazing Hank’s neck like a lover’s kiss. Hank had shivered as every inch of his skin puckered with a sudden surge of lust. His pupils expanded behind closed eyes as he squeezed the base of his cock with a guttural moan. Intention mattered, Connor knew. In that moment, he <em>wanted</em>, and Hank had felt it.</p><p>Still, Hank lingered, his grip insufficient for his purpose. Connor found himself longing to caress, to bite. He wanted to find the secret places Hank liked to be touched and then drown him in sensation. Hank’s hand moved lazily as if polishing his shaft for cleanliness—as if he wasn’t jacking his impressive length to filthy thoughts that Connor found wildly enticing.</p><p>More than once, Connor thought the show was going to end. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed. Investing in human desires was as fatiguing as it was satisfying. The first time Connor could sense Hank’s energy writhe with explosive determination, Hank pulled back. He fondled himself rather than stroking. He tugged absently at his heavy sac, easing the desperation squirming within. Connor had groaned alongside Hank as if he too was being denied.</p><p>By the time Hank had brought himself to release, Connor felt winded and in need of a three-year-long nap. After that, Connor learned Hank’s routines in increments. If he drank or overslept, microwave dinners were to follow as if he didn’t deserve a decent meal. If he didn’t drink, if there was time, Hank began his day with a protracted, sensual shower. It was a hell of a reward system and Connor wasn’t complaining.</p><p>Most nights, though, Hank’s eyes drift to the fridge as if he too can look through solid objects. He gazes at it intently, battling with himself. Connor doesn’t usually care this much about human affairs, but spending so much time in Hank’s orbit imprinted a bit of the man on Connor’s soul.</p><p>Death had warned Connor of the danger before, “Living people are like wild animals. You can’t fix them. You might think you’re helping them, but they only take in the end. They can’t offer you anything in return. Don’t form attachments or you may lose yourself along the way.”  </p><p>Connor had seen it firsthand. They didn’t often encounter other wandering spirits, but the ones Connor had seen left his stomach sour with fear.</p><p>“Were they like me?” Connor had asked in a parched whisper, afraid to give voice to the direct question.</p><p>Death had stared hard at the bent form of the twisted creature. It was missing sections as if someone had taken an industrial-sized hole punch to it. The edges looked raw and oozed into miasmic puddles around the tormented thing, but the spirit held on doggedly to its person. It didn’t seem to notice it was wasting away and going foul at the edges.</p><p>“No,” Death had finally answered. “Not like you.” Death had never said it plainly or directly, but Connor had gathered over the years that he annoyed Death for a couple of reasons. The first being that he and Connor seemed fated to follow one and other across the earth despite Death’s persistent attempts to shake him. The second was harder to quantify, but Connor got the impression that he puzzled Death.</p><p>
  <em>I deliver people.</em>
</p><p>Yet Connor remained.</p><p>Sitting here without Death’s quiet judgment, Connor decides that while Death may be ancient, he obviously doesn’t know everything.</p><p>“Please,” Connor whispers from his perch on the couch over his bent knees. Hank relaxes as if the single word is a plush, weighted blanket. Encouraged, Connor leans forward, bracing his arms on the sofa.</p><p>His lips are so close to Hank’s ear they almost flutter against the delicate skin when he speaks, “You don’t need it. <em>Please</em>.”</p><p>Hank sighs in a way that makes his bones seem too heavy for his skin. He raises the remote at the TV as if his arm is moving through tar before depressing the power button with too much force. The image fades to black and for a moment, Connor sees himself reflected beside Hank on the screen.</p><p>He knows it’s a projection. He knows it’s a risk to linger here with Hank. He knows it’s probably pointless, but it feels cruel to give up on this man who’s trying so hard to be better. He can’t hold Hank’s hand through bad nights. He can’t talk him back from the edge when grief and loss needle at his temples. Connor’s seen Hank’s carnal desires, but he’s felt his grief, too.</p><p>There’s a touch of hopeless longing around him still. He isn’t out of the woods, but the trees are starting to thin in a promise of clear skies. Mostly, Hank is tired of being alone. Connor may be poor company, but he helps where he can.</p><p>He lowers the stove burner temperature by thinking rude thoughts at it when it threatens to burn Hank’s bacon. He stops the microwave from exploding Hank’s Hot Pocket at the edges while leaving the center a frozen brick by burning an angry little hole in the middle. He sets off the fire alarm in a panic when Hank forgets a casserole of questionable quality in the oven.</p><p>He tried frying the oven coil first, but larger appliances were trickier to influence. The most he managed was to reduce the heat to buy Hank some time. When black smoke began to trickle from the around the oven door with sinister intent, Connor had stood over Hank shrieking for him to wake up. The fire alarm closest to Connor began to blare in earnest as well. Whether from Connor’s panic or from the oven smoke beginning to clog the hall, he isn’t sure.</p><p>Hank doesn’t seem all that impressed with the racket, but Connor’s chest stops strangling his throat when Hank bolts to the kitchen to deal with his ruined meal.</p><p>“That was unnecessary,” Death mutters from the corner of the room, and Connor about-faces faster than blinking. He finds Death sitting primly on an armchair as if Hank placed it there just for him. As if he hasn’t been gone for weeks. His walking stick balances across his knees with unnatural stillness.</p><p>He knows Death is right, that the smoke detector would have done its job just fine, but Death’s cold detachment from humanity chafes worse than usual. The ghostly equivalent of adrenaline roars under his skin. It pulses against his eyes in angry red flashes and curls his fingers into fists. After decades of pointless wanderings, countless deaths, and far too few seedlings, Connor’s ready for a fight.</p><p>“People always need protecting if you’re near.” The words hiss and slither around clenched teeth and something oily stains the carpet beneath Connor’s feet.</p><p>“<em>Some</em> people,” Death remarks while examining nails hidden behind his absurdly long, tattered sleeves, “practically beg for me to take them.”</p><p>Connor doesn’t remember the surge, isn’t sure how he managed it, but he moved faster than a blur and Death hadn’t anticipated it. They’d tussled before and Death had won every time. It’s yet to stop Connor from lashing out when Death pushes too hard, too soon, on the parts of Connor that still ache for life.</p><p>He’d managed glancing blows in the past, bruising Death’s ego more than the creature himself. This time, Connor’s fist collides into Death’s chest with a sickening crack. The scrawny, cloaked specter reels backward as much from the impact as from the ethereal, blinding glow emanating from Connor’s quaking form. Flung flat on his ass, Connor can sense the wrath Death keeps under careful control threatening to break loose.</p><p>“Insignificant infant,” Death hurls the words, but the icy intent melts as soon as it collides with the incandescent heat fanning from Connor in waves. Death staggers to his feet, clutching his walking stick with a withered, blackened hand. It’s darker than Connor remembered and a vicious satisfaction fills Connor with reckless confidence. Connor had suspected the imbalance of taking too many lives while weaving too few new ones were taking a toll on his begrudging partner in the afterlife. Seeing those warped, wizened hands serves as proof.</p><p>Still, Death isn’t without teeth, “You think you can save him? He knows his time is short. You never saw me coming, but this man knows I’m here.”</p><p>Something clatters loudly in the kitchen followed by garbled swearing and shouts of pain. Images flicker through Connor’s mind of Hank attempting to pull the burnt dish from the belly of the smoke-belching oven with his bare hands, but he blinks it aside. Time passes confusingly when his emotions escape his careful grip. Death had tried to teach him control, but now Connor wonders if Death had been playing him from the start.</p><p>How long had it taken him to master even the smallest degree of physics to interact with the human world? How many years had he spent suppressing his ache, his anger at his untimely passing, because Death told him it was for the best? True, his emotions could have dangerous consequences. It isn’t smart for anyone to play with electricity, living or otherwise, but ignoring his feelings had done nothing to ease them. The more Connor tried to bind them to the past, the harder they fought for their freedom.</p><p>“You’re weak,” Connor can feel Death smiling, misinterpreting his silence as hesitation. “You’ve wandered this earth for more than a score of years and you haven’t grown an inch. My seedlings have more substance than you.”</p><p>The insult, intended to gouge, lands with less force than a water balloon.</p><p>“Hank may sense you,” Connor admits, “He may even welcome you. But grief is not a weakness.”</p><p>Death scoffs at the notion and Connor doubles down on every wrong he’s felt, every life he’s seen snuffed unnecessarily short. A voice croaks in the back of Connor’s mind weakly as if suffocated by his righteous indignation. It urges caution. It urges forgiveness. It urges Connor to remember that Death, too, has been wronged.</p><p>He tells the voice to go to hell.</p><p>“You aren’t welcome here,” Connor’s words ring with finality and absolute truth. “You won’t have this one. He is <em>mine</em>.”</p><p>Connor isn’t certain of many things anymore. Life following his demise had proven strange and difficult to navigate even with Death serving as his guide. Nonetheless, he knows Death isn’t a villain even if his actions often seem cruel. He also knows Death isn’t faultless as he often indicated. Everyone makes their own choices. There are consequences, sometimes hideous ones, but Death chooses to live up to his moniker. He speaks to a voice in the sky Connor can’t hear and chooses to obey its orders.</p><p>Feeling the thunder in his voice, sensing the fabric of reality rending around them, Connor is certain of one final thing. Death and his puppeteer are not his friends and he’s done playing by their rules. He’s tired of feeling cold and embraces the blistering spark of humanity still inside him that Death hadn’t yet managed to snuff out. Ice slams down around the rippling edges of their plane, slowing Connor’s halt but not stopping it.</p><p>“Wait!” A desperate urgency chokes Death’s words, like a parent watching a child walk unknowingly into oncoming traffic. “You’re not ready. <em>Please!</em>”</p><p>Connor coils his rage, his sorrow, his sympathy for the human plight into a beacon of warmth, ready to purge Death himself from Hank’s home.</p><p>The bedroom door jumps from a kick with more force than a battering ram. It opens a few scant inches and Connor notices for the first time a panicked voice shouting variations of <em>What the fuck? </em>and<em> WHAT THE FUCK?</em> The volume comes through tinny like from a radio station just out of range. Hank’s arm worms into the opening, waving frantically as if trying to find purchase. Connor’s fury reduces to a simmer and Hank manages to shove the door wide enough to slip his bulk through despite the otherworldly energies sewing chaos in his bedroom.</p><p>Dropping his hands to his knees, Hank pants as if opening the door had taken all of his considerable strength.</p><p>He pushes thick fingers back through his hair before lifting his exhausted gaze to meet Connor’s glowing amber eyes, “Jee-zus Christ, what is with you two?”</p><p>If it wasn’t for the impeccable timing and the fact that Hank is staring straight at him, Connor would think Hank had snapped and started blaspheming at shadows.</p><p>“You can <em>hear </em>me?” Incredulity infuses every word down to the letter and the furnace kicks on as the temperature vacillates by several emotional degrees.</p><p>“Yeah,” Hank mutters while glancing over his shoulder at the thermostat in the hall, “and cut it the fuck out. You’re going to blow my HVAC with your caterwauling.”</p><p>With confusion serving as the only hurdle between Connor going supernova in Hank’s bedroom, Death seizes his moment, “He can see you, too.” Every instance of peeping, whispering, and swearing at Hank’s appliances filters across Connor’s brain with sickening, humiliating speed.</p><p>Before embarrassment can crack open the hardwood planking to swallow Connor whole, Hank jabs a finger dripping with accusation at Death, “Man, that is <em>not</em> helpful.”</p><p>Death shrugs, “Connor wasn’t interested in my help from the start. I did try to warn him off you. You know how it is.” Death gestures at Connor like he’s been caught for the dozenth time sneaking in past curfew.</p><p>“Oh, <em>fuck <strong>you</strong></em>,” Connor snarls, and Death flinches away from the singeing words. They ventilate Death’s hood and leave an acrid, chemical smell in their wake.</p><p>Something mechanical bellows an angry, parting farewell, and Hank scrubs a hand over his face, “Aaaaaaand there goes the furnace.”</p><p>Death glances through several walls, leaning forward as if to squint, “It’s not the worst mechanical failure I’ve seen, but—”</p><p>Hank raises his hand in a silencing gesture that demands absolute compliance. Connor feels his jaw unhinge in shock when Death’s voice cuts out mid-sentence.</p><p>Hank glances around as if listening for telltale signs of other mechanical beasts on the verge of collapse, “You need to go before you break more shit in my house. The kid can stay—”</p><p>“<em>I</em> didn’t break anything!” Death interrupts, sounding more petulant than Connor had ever heard in his life. Afterlife. Semantics.</p><p>Hank isn’t moved or impressed by Death’s argument, “Man, don’t make me banish you. I fucking hate the smell of burnt sage.” Frost erupts in a corona of furious, spiky blue around Death’s perimeter and Hank adopts a softer, huskier tone, “Don’t make me.” Connor can read the entreaty in Hank’s words as if he’d spoken thorough a fountain pen.</p><p>Death thaws marginally and the frost retreats to his edges, “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. He’s worse than the others.” Before Connor can decide if he’s more irate or intrigued by Death’s insult, the creature snaps and vanishes with a completeness Connor has never known.</p><p>Until he’d felt its absence, he hadn’t realized how heavily Death’s presence weighed him down. He feels floaty and light. The persistent scent of dead flowers that clings to Death leaves his nostrils, replacing it with something masculine obscured by a great deal of Hank’s foul-smelling, charred dinner.</p><p>“Whoaaaa, kid. Stay with me.” Connor looks down to find Hank staring up at him with his head cranked as far back as his spine will allow. “You go up there, you don’t come back.”</p><p>“Up where?” Connor asks, fighting a giggle. The question feels like soap bubbles in his throat and he chuckles away the sensation. He rises several more carefree inches toward the ceiling.</p><p>Hank snags him by the ankle, which is more shocking than it is unwelcome, “Dunno. No one comes back. Your friend doesn’t care for whoever is running the show up there.”</p><p>“Death,” Connor glowers and sinks half a foot just for mentioning him. Hank’s grip slides to mid-calf, but he doesn’t loosen his hold. “Death is <em>not</em> my friend.”</p><p>“Yeah, well. Man hasn’t ever been very good at making friends.” Hank tugs hard on Connor’s leg, yanking him back into reality, “It’s one of the few things we have in common.”</p><p>Connor’s mouth flops open to argue, to tell Hank every charming thing he knows about him, and then snaps shut again with scarlet embarrassment.</p><p>“Riiiight,” Hank interprets Connor’s humiliated silence with surgical accuracy. “S’pose you have some questions.”</p><p>Two hours later, Hank regrets opening that particular box in Pandora’s repertoire.</p><p>“So about the showers,” Connor asks for the hundredth time at his most blunt angle. “You <em>knew</em> I was there and you—”</p><p>Hank holds up a hand before running it down his face, “I don’t <em>always</em> know—I—Jesus fuck. Look, it’s not like there’s a rule book to the undead or whatever. Sometimes I see you. Sometimes I don’t. You’re lucky I’m not one of the ones who starts screaming and throwing holy water at every corner of the house when a ghost joins me to watch bullshit TV.”</p><p>“But you can see me now!” Connor insists, stomping his foot hard enough to sink through the house flooring into several inches of silt. Hank makes a <em>yeuck</em> sound when Connor wrenches it free, leaving a mess of ectoplasm and shit-smelling mud in its wake.</p><p>“Well, yeah,” Hank has run his hand through his hair more times than he has eyelashes since starting this conversation. It practically stands on end. “When you try to banish old as fuck spirits in my bedroom, it kinda shatters the fourth wall.”</p><p>Connor continues pressing Hank from all sides, literally. He glides through him obnoxiously when Hank folds his arms in grumpy silence. Gooseflesh erupts on Hank’s arms and he squawks as if Connor plunged him into a pool of ice water teeming with jellyfish. When Hank hardens his exterior with a vibrant energy that emanates a clear <em>Fuck Off</em>, Connor sets off his smoke detector again. In the battle of pettiness, Connor has Hank outclassed.</p><p>“You said you had answers,” Connor glowers as he blocks Hank’s view of Family Feud. The smoke alarm has been wailing for a solid five minutes, but Hank behaves as if he doesn’t hear it.</p><p>“Said no such thing,” he mumbles, but his eyes can’t quite meet Connor’s gaze.</p><p>“Implied it then,” Connor huffs and a ghostly lock of hair flops onto his forehead. Of all the bullshit he’s had to endure since dying, uncooperative hair in the afterlife ranks high on his list.</p><p>“I don’t know why you’re still here, before you ask,” Hank somehow manages to sigh the question with equal parts weary exhaustion and empathy. “It’s not like I have some blueprint of your life I can pull out from under my cushion to show you where it all went wrong.”</p><p>Connor frowns at that, “So something<em> is</em> wrong then.” He doesn’t posit it as a question and Hank’s eyes go a smidge wide. It wouldn’t be noticeable if Connor hadn’t been watching Hank’s every quirk and tic for the better part of a month.</p><p>“Well…yeah. You’re not supposed to be here. It’s what’s got your pal so riled up,” Hank hooks a thumb over his shoulder at his room where Connor had attempted to burn a hole through Death’s equator to cleave him neatly in two.</p><p>“So Death isn’t always a pedantic ass, then?” Connor crosses his arms with so much skeptic force, his shoulder twinges.</p><p>Hank snorts hard enough that it chafes Connor’s nasal passages, “Nah, that part is pretty accurate. The bitterness, though, that’s new.”</p><p>“How new,” Connor presses, and some semblance of his desiccated heart flutters in a nauseating panic in his chest.</p><p>“Since you,” Hank confirms Connor’s suspicions, but he isn’t sure if he’s excited or disturbed by the news. </p><p>Despite the provoking revelations, Hank is either unable or unwilling to share much else. He loses his patience after the third hour of Connor’s incessant questions. He threatens to buck him from the property altogether after the fourth.</p><p>“I happen to know for a fact that you don’t own any sage, Hank. You don’t even have garlic salt. What kind of repressed, self-hating human are you?” Hank scowls at Connor darkly, before rooting around in a drawer as if to prove him wrong. His hand produces an empty plastic bottle labeled “minced garlic.” It’s clear to Connor that whatever used to live in that jar was a sad imitation of garlic at best.</p><p>Hank punctures his smug superiority with a quickness, “I don’t need sage to get rid of you.”</p><p>Connor can feel the truth in the words, knows Hank could force him out by sheer willpower if he wanted to do it. He’s not as well-versed as Death in navigating this part of afterlife. The house has a strong aura for just one man. Connor may not know the Hank that came before, but he can feel the imprint of him. This house had life. It had love. It leaves a mark that lingers and imbues the home with strength and fortitude against unwelcome, unearthly guests.</p><p>Connor raises his hands in defeat and deference, “Ok. Ok. I wasn’t trying to poke a sore spot. I was just—”</p><p>“Being a brat?” Hank supplies flatly and without much enthusiasm. Still, there is a spark of playfulness in his eyes that Connor suspects hasn’t had a chance to glimmer in a long time.</p><p>Connor levels a flat-mouthed look at Hank before demanding, “Why let me stay then?” When Hank’s only answer is a half-assed, one-shoulder shrug, Connor changes tactics, “Why make Death leave, Hank?”</p><p>The skin on Hank’s neck contracts as if Connor plunged him into a snowbank. The fine hairs stand on end and Hank rolls his head to cover a slight but telling shiver, “Man skeeves me out, yanno? Always watching and lingering here. It feels like a probation officer waiting to pounce on me at the slightest misstep, except I don’t have any damn idea what the rules are or what I did to merit this much ghostly attention.”</p><p>Hank inhales deeply enough to make his nostrils pull flat to his nose. He pinches the bridge of it as if a headache is coming on, “Right judgy bastard, too, when you get down to it.”</p><p>A barely repressed belly laugh tugs at the corner of Connor’s mouth. A great deal of mirth carries over into his tone, “Ya don’t say?”</p><p>Hank snorts and it pulls the cork on Connor’s chortle. He laughs hard enough that his stomach muscles threaten to spasm. There wasn’t much laughing to be had when Death was your only companion. Connor had forgotten how good it felt. He wonders how many other things he’ll forget before his spirit expires. It’s a sobering thought and his chuckles diminish into individual <em>ha’s</em> without much enthusiasm.</p><p>“Figured it out have you?” Connor startles at the intrusion and he lifts his head to see Hank staring at him intently.</p><p>“Figured out <em>what</em>?” He mutters churlishly. He’d hoped it was Death’s presence that always made everything feel grey and dull, but there is no escaping the oppressive taste of lifelessness that fills his mouth. His brief spike of happiness, of dipping back into what it felt like to be alive, fades as rapidly as it came on.</p><p>“That being dead sucks, Con,” Hank answers gently.</p><p>Rage splutters to life in Connor’s chest at Hank’s presumption, his familiarity. It grows into a roaring fire until every nerve ending screams as if they’re dying, “Do you think I <em>want</em> to be here? Do you think I like following Death around like his personal trophy? ‘Here Lies Connor, Actual Roadkill’” His voice constricts tightly, pitching the final words so high that they threaten to scrape the ceiling.</p><p>Hank’s voice reaches his ears as if through water, “No one wants to be where you are.” Connor tries to turn to face Hank, but his neck doesn’t comply. The searing pain of fury fades as quickly as the purity of joy had, leaving him weak and numb. He knows he should feel panicked, but the notion rolls over in the back of his mind with a detached, sleepy murmur.</p><p>Exhaustion as heavy as a human skeleton settles over him. He hadn’t anticipated how much tangible emotions would deplete him even if he only tried them on like expensive suits he can’t afford. He’s halfway through the thought that he probably needs to sit down when he realizes he can’t feel his feet anymore, much less his ass, to place himself anywhere.</p><p>“Who do you think ‘Death’ is, Con?” Hank’s voice is much too close to his ear. The way he emphasizes <em>Death </em>makes the word sound wrong and ill-fitting on the tongue.</p><p>Connor shakes his head with syrupy incredulity—or, rather, he thinks really hard about the gesture, “He’s…” Connor fades off, disturbed by how quiet he sounds after his tantrum moments before. Several seconds, maybe hours, maybe entire civilizations, blossom into life and wilt into nothingness before he picks at the thread of thought again, “He’s Death. What else is there?”</p><p>He doesn’t need to be able to move to know Hank is watching him warily. The gaze isn’t suspicious, though. If anything, the energy emanating from Hank’s nearby body is one of deep concern. A titter of a memory tickles at the base of Connor’s spine, and warmth crackles in sharp pinpricks down his limbs.</p><p>Connor sucks in a pointless breath, and the air scrapes at his esophagus. It tastes as sterile and antiseptic as Death behaves when taking life, but, still, he remembers, “He delivers people.”</p><p>“Con,” he clings to Hank’s voice, not wanting to float off to wherever the soundless voice issues commands. He doesn’t know where restless spirits go. He isn’t sure he even has a choice, but he knows he doesn’t want to drift away, to disappear. He isn’t ready for the world to forget him. He wants to stay here, with Hank. He wants to remember how good it felt to laugh again even if the sensation isn’t his to keep.</p><p>His fingers itch and he tries to close them on reflex. It might be his imagination or the best of dreams, but he’s almost certain Hank is holding his hand. He tells his doubts to go kick rocks.</p><p>“‘Death’ isn’t a <em>he</em>,” Hank picks up where Connor’s splintered thoughts left off.</p><p>He has enough left of himself to prickle, “Don’t go philosophical on me.” It comes out raspy like disintegrating fall leaves whispering across dying grass, “Death may not have a heart or a dick, but—”</p><p>Hank snorts in a way Connor has learned to recognize as honest amusement. He tries to fold his insubstantial arms, but they don’t seem to want to obey his command any more than the rest of his body does as he croaks out a defensive, “<em>What?</em>”</p><p>“Always knew we all see what we wanted to see in the beginning. Some stuff sticks to the end, I guess.” Connor blinks in baffled silence as Hank chuckles lightly, enjoying some private joke. His laugh settles in Connor’s belly like warm stones, grounding him a while longer.</p><p>“What do you mean?” He’s exhausted and beyond tired of asking questions without ever receiving a straight answer.</p><p>Hank’s hand rests on his chest, uncomfortably heavy for its size, “<em>Death.</em> I thought you were just being an ass or maybe it was some kind of inside joke or—”</p><p>Connor attempts to throw Hank’s hand off his sternum in annoyance. Although he only remembers it in the vaguest sense, the pressure of Hank’s hand is worse than that of the vehicle that crushed the life out of him.</p><p>Hank glances to the sky abruptly before muttering a dark <em>Fuck off</em>, “Life is shit. It’s unfair and mean and—” Hank cuts himself off, rushing ahead as if racing against a crashing wave, “Death is worse. There are no answers. There is no oblivion. But the ‘Death’ you know? She’s a woman. A bitter, flawed woman, but she tries to help where she can.”</p><p>“But,” Connor tries to gesture at Hank, but Hank’s palm presses deeper as if trying to reach through Connor to grip him by the spine, “You refer to him as—I’ve heard you—you call him—”</p><p>“Man?” Hank supplies. Connor would glare if his eyelids would comply. Hank shrugs, “I call you <em>Con</em>. I call her <em>Man</em>.” When his lips fail him, Connor swears as many vitriolic things as he can summon in his mind at yet another vague answer. Hank’s fingers tense against his chest and Connor convulses in pain as if tiny spears had erupted from Hank’s fingertips to puncture him.</p><p>Hank grimaces, checking his watch, “Sorry, they’re trying to—we’re running out of time. One last question and I’ll let you rest.” Connor isn’t sure why the statement doesn’t fill him with dread. He’s spent so long fighting to hold onto what little life remains in him, but the glimmer of peace holds enormous appeal to his ragged soul.</p><p>He blinks open his eyes, slow as honey, and Hank waits for his vision to focus, “‘Death’ asked me once if I would do it again, given the chance. The good, the bad, the god-fucking-awful.” Connor’s eyebrow twitches in the hint of a question and Hank clarifies, leaning too heavy and too close. It hurts to breathe until Connor remembers he doesn’t have lungs. Waves of nausea burn his throat with barely repressed sick.</p><p>Hank’s eyes burst into his vision like the summer sky as his final question flutters down to tickle Connor’s ear, “Do you want to live?”</p><p>Connor isn’t sure if his body simply evaporates into insubstantial mist or if Hank fades from his consciousness, much like his soul is fading from him. Still, even though his lips won’t move, even though he may not have lips anymore, he hurls his final, desperate thought like a shooting star:</p><p>
  <em>Yes.</em>
</p><p>Pain. Explosive, hideous, horrendous pain lances through every bone down to the marrow. Every rib tries to rip inside out, puncturing soft bits before fracturing into shards. His muscles rend to shreds and every vein screams in anguish until murky bliss pumps with every beat of his—</p><p>“CLEAR!”</p><p>Death laughs, but it sounds lighter and much more pleased than Connor had ever heard him.</p><p><em>Her</em>.</p><p>“Death is worse,” a voice repeats, and Connor finds himself wondering <em>how do you know?</em></p><p>Lights pierce at his eyes, sewing themselves shut against the agony of daylight.</p><p>“Connor?”</p><p>He wants to twist away, to curl into himself until all that remains a knot not worth untangling. Every breath is torture and darkness threatens to devour him until—</p><p>“<em>Connor</em>.”</p><p>His eyelids flutter, and he’s impressed with himself. They don’t open, but they jump and twitch with the effort. It’s more than he’d been able to manage since—</p><p>“Con?”</p><p>
  <em>Hank.</em>
</p><p><em>This room is abnormally white</em> is his first impression when he manages to lift his eyelids against the oppressive weight pinning them to his cheeks. He tries to sit up, but his chest feels oddly detached from his legs.</p><p>A small, gloved hand presses against his sternum. He can only tell because he’s looking.</p><p><em>I can see</em>.</p><p>He isn’t sure why the thought fills him with so much rambunctious joy. He wants to jump and hoot and make a nuisance of himself, but—</p><p>“Welcome back, Connor.”</p><p>He lifts his head and it nearly drops off the back of his shoulders under the weight of it, “Easy, easy.”</p><p>He focuses on the person, trying to puzzle out where he is. Her white coat is long, hanging almost to her knees. A buttery scarf drapes over one shoulder, adding a bit of flair to an otherwise sterile uniform. Thick braids sit tightly to her scalp and Connor’s mind gets lost in the dark rows like a maze.</p><p>“I’m Dr. Stern,” she introduces herself without offering her hand. Connor realizes with the first flutterings of panic that he couldn’t lift his arm to shake it even if she had. “There was an accident. You’re in the hospital. Breathe, Connor.”</p><p>He doesn’t care for her cold, detached efficiency, but it makes it easier to do as she says. It’s well over a minute before he realizes the frenetic beeping wasn’t just in his head; it was his heart rate monitor.</p><p>Dr. Stern glances up once in annoyance as if the jingling alarm of Connor’s panic is an inconvenience, “This room is about to get very busy. I’ll check in on you later. Do try not to irritate the specialists.” She turns on her heel, departing with a stiff gait.</p><p>He wants to tell her to kiss his ass, but it seems a bit hasty. Best to find out what hospital he’s in and why first. His strength fails him with a disturbing swiftness. Fifteen minutes into the second physician, and he’s ready to sleep through the next several years.</p><p>He retains a few things of note: an accident, a bus, paralysis. </p><p>No one could give him a clear answer. How could he have felt so much pain to wake up numb? He let the third doctor dither on for the better part of half an hour before asking bluntly, “So did my legs shit the bed for good or will I ever walk again?”</p><p>Someone badly suppressing a snort from the doorway eases Connor’s anger at the specialist. It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t been driving the bus, and, from what Connor’s gathered, the team assigned to his care is top-notch.</p><p>“Who are you?” He asks wearily, not ready for a fourth specialist to tell him some other organ or another is damaged or that he’ll need several surgeries or—</p><p>The man sets a pink and white rectangular box that smells suspiciously of donuts on Connor’s bedside table before answering, “I’m Lt. Anderson. I was the first responder to the scene; I pulled you out.”</p><p>“Pulled me out?” Connor’s nose wrinkles in confusion and the lieutenant can’t quite meet his gaze.</p><p>A pinkish rose color dusts the man’s cheeks until the physician interjects, “I wouldn’t say <em>pull</em> so much as lifted an entire bus.” The officer’s face darkens into an undeniable burgundy blush and he mutters sounds that might be words.</p><p>“You—a bus?” Connor tries to clarify, but his tongue feels three times too large for his mouth after extended disuse.</p><p>“He saved your life,” Dr. Stern’s voice cuts the room in half as she looms in the doorway. She sounds too loud and too rough to be allowed in the recovery wing. Hank winces along with Connor as the other doctor’s pager goes berserk, sending him flying from the room. He calls promises to return over his shoulder, but Connor can’t stop staring at the Lieutenant.</p><p>“Have we…met?” Connor’s head tilts to one side alarmingly as he asks as if it doesn’t remember how to hold itself upright. Hank lurches forward as if to catch him then stops abruptly. Such babying from a near stranger would normally annoy him, but Connor can’t shake the feeling of familiarity.</p><p>Dr. Stern shoos the officer out of her way to manipulate Connor’s hand as if checking the muscle tone, “Hank has been a steadfast presence in your recovery.” Connor blinks from his doctor to this <em>Hank</em> and back again, clearly expecting a better answer.</p><p>Dr. Stern shoots a pointed look at Hank that all but demands: <em>Tell him</em>.</p><p>Hank scratches at the back of his head with one hand as he answers, “We have the same blood type.”</p><p>Awkward silence follows and Dr. Stern’s lips go thin as if she very much wants to roll her eyes, “There’s a dearth of type O blood, type O negative in particular. Hank donates as frequently as the hospital allows. Not that he gets to dictate who receives it, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.”</p><p>Skepticism washes over Connor’s face like a rag, “I thought I could receive blood from anyone.” Hank’s blush spreads down his neck and Connor adds a hasty, “Not that I’m not appreciative or anything, officer…lieutenant…Hank.” He finishes lamely.</p><p>Dr. Stern casts an unimpressed gaze between the two men in the room. It’s clear she thinks they’re both idiots, “You can <em>donate</em> to anyone, but you can only receive your own blood type.” She points a fine-tipped, pristinely white pen in Hank’s direction “There. I’ve let you in and you’ve seen him. If that’s all—”</p><p>“Wait,” Connor interrupts and she sucks in an annoyed breath through her nostrils.</p><p>“Yes?” The question comes out curt and clearly forbids delaying the next steps of his recovery.</p><p>Connor hears the irritation in her tone but ignores it. Something tickles at the back of his brain anytime he meets Hank’s cool blue gaze like a skipping stone sending ripples out from some forgotten memory.</p><p>“I want to know what happened,” he nods in Hank’s direction. “From him. He was there. None of the doctors I’ve spoken with today want to tell me anything about it.”</p><p>Dr. Stern’s patience evaporates, “You were hit by a bus. The details are irrelevant to your treatment plan.”</p><p>Connor bristles, but Hank intervenes, “Doc, c’mon. He’s up to his eyebrows in medical mumbo jumbo. Give him a day to wrap his head around it all.” Connor half expects Dr. Stern to cleave Hank in half with sharp words. Instead, she exhales loudly through her nostrils in clear disagreement. As if on cue, a haughty, arrogant voice crackles over the hospital intercom paging one Dr. Stern to the OR.</p><p>She snaps her clipboard to her chest in a terminating gesture before glancing at Connor down her nose, “I’ll be back in the morning. Ask your questions. I won’t tolerate any more delays.” She leaves the room with clipped steps and her shoes echo ominously in her wake. Although muted, Connor notices the addition of a rubber-tipped cane to aid her inflexible stride.</p><p>Connor pulls his gaze from his doctor’s retreating back to see Hank regarding him with mild amusement, “She takes some getting used to, in case you hadn’t noticed.”</p><p>Connor isn’t sure what he expected of the man who saved his life. Hank answers his questions readily and sits comfortably despite the hospital chairs appearing to be two sizes too small for his considerable height and bulk.</p><p>“Is that comfortable?” Connor finally asks when Hank catches him staring for the second time.</p><p>Something similar to amusement crackles in the corners of Hank’s smile as he answers, “Like the doc toldja, I’ve been coming here a while. I’m used to it.”</p><p>It takes three days and two excruciating rounds of rehabilitation exercises for Connor to ask the bald question, “So why did you visit me—before I was awake?” He rushes through it, hoping to trip Hank up and force him into an answer.</p><p>Hank gives him an easy shrug, “I’ve been where you are now. Not this bad, but I knocked on death’s door a few times over my career.”</p><p>Hank says it easily enough, but Connor can sense a tension simmering beneath Hank’s tranquil surface. No one tangles with death so casually and gets to walk away unscathed. He opens his mouth to mumble something sympathetic when he catches a glimpse of raw pain and something beautifully fragile in Hank’s steady gaze. Static electricity crackles down Connor’s femur and his knee jerks abruptly to one side. Hank is on his feet, helping Connor rearrange himself before either realize the enormity of what happened.</p><p>Connor smiles with wild glee at his legs, “I—my knee—it…”</p><p>“It moved,” Hank exhales a sound that could be elation or amazement. “Yeah, Con. I saw it.”</p><p>A delicious warmth trickles down Connor’s spine at the nickname, but no more twitches follow. It feels more like an engine rumbling, ready to turn over as soon as it has enough torque.</p><p>He pulls the story from Hank in bits and pieces over the next several weeks. Hank doesn’t like to talk about his own brush with mortality, but he’s clear on one thing, “I wouldn’t have made it without my friends. Doc said your family was gone and I couldn’t just…I couldn’t leave you here alone like that.”</p><p>Connor shoots him a skeptical look and Hank flushes, trying to hide his embarrassment behind his cards. Despite obvious evidence that Hank is quite terrible at Go Fish, they continue to play the game anytime he visits. Connor even manages to hold his own cards for the entire duration of a game every now and then.</p><p>“You were dead,” Hank finally confesses in a hushed tone. Connor’s cards wilt to the table and Hank doesn’t call him on lying about having a three of spades. “I felt it. You were gone, but I couldn’t stop. You were too young. It was wrong. So I kept up the compression. My partner told me—I scared him—but I just <em>knew</em>…I <em>needed</em> you to…”</p><p>Hank fades off to stare at the ceiling. His eyes are shining too bright and Connor uses a week’s worth of energy to lurch forward and clumsily grab at Hank’s hand, “Thank you for not giving up on me.”</p><p>Hank ejects out a breathy, gasping laugh, but he returns the pressure of Connor’s struggling grip.</p><p>After several too-heavy breaths, Hank mutters, “Doc warned me not to get attached. That you wouldn’t know me when you woke up—that I didn’t really know you—but…I dunno, Con. I dunno.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Connor tries to squeeze, but only two of his fingers seem to get the message, “I know what you mean.”</p><p>Dr. Stern skulks with uncharacteristic hesitation in the doorway. She’s had patients make miraculous recoveries before, but Connor’s case was puzzling. It went against protocol and the hospital administrator had taken to giving her hell for it. She ignores his second page over the intercom system in favor of watching this peculiarity unfold before her.</p><p>Connor was lucky to arrive alive at the hospital at all. By the time he made it to the surgery table, Dr. Stern couldn’t understand how Connor’s heart kept on beating despite the extensive trauma to his body. A wild-eyed, blood-soaked officer lingered in the hall, pestering any assistant that came and went for details. She’d assumed he was family given his behavior.</p><p>Mild surprise tinted her carefully chosen words, “You worked very hard to save this stranger. There is a more than significant chance that he won’t survive the next operation.”</p><p>“Any chance is more than enough,” the officer’s words came out fierce and Dr. Stern recognized the tone of a survivor. Whether this man had felt the touch of death or witnessed it before, it’s left an unmistakable mark every surgeon learns to recognize with enough experience.</p><p>If her sudden smile surprised him, he didn’t show it, “I agree. Walk with me, officer…?”</p><p>“Lieutenant Anderson,” he answered with weary gratefulness. “But just call me Hank.”</p><p>She had been a bit at a loss the next time Hank arrived at the hospital, looking for updates. She’s told him everything she could regarding Connor’s care and prognosis without breaking HIPPA regulations. On his third visit, she’d inquired after his blood type. He volunteered on the spot, rolling up sleeves to reveal shriveled veins.</p><p>“You’re severely dehydrated,” she commented with a blunt force akin to an accusation. Hank hadn’t been able to meet her gaze and mumbled about drinking more water.</p><p>She held her stare for a beat longer before replying, “Do try to work on that.” Both Hank and her patient appeared to wilt in the intervening days. Despite her best efforts and Hank’s steady donations to their blood bank, Connor was losing ground. After a blistering argument behind closed doors with the head of hospital administration, Dr. Stern marched as swiftly as her legs allowed.</p><p>“<em>Hank</em>,” she called to his retreating shoulders. Although her voice was even and measured, Hank came to a dead halt as if she’d shouted at him.</p><p>Overtaking him with no explanation, she issued a curt, “Come with me.” He followed without hesitation.</p><p>She’d felt a bit silly standing in Connor’s sterile recovery room with Hank by her side while a ventilator forcing air into her uncooperative patient’s lungs. Connor wasn’t a plant that needed talking to, but Hank had brought him back from the dead once already. She’d hoped Hank could convince Connor to stay one more time.</p><p>She watches with heavy skepticism and self-doubt as Hank took Connor’s spindly fingers between his hands, “How ya doing, kid?”</p><p>Dr. Stern wrinkled her nose, “His name is Connor.” Hank quirked an eyebrow at her as if nitpicking over Connor’s name was a strange argument to spark.</p><p>“Seems like such a serious name,” Hank mutters more to Connor than to the doctor looming without much purpose in the doorway. “Whaddya think, Con?”</p><p>Hope as inextinguishable as the sunrise crowed quietly in Dr. Stern’s chest as Connor’s heart rate monitor ticked upward a few small but significant beats. Hank’s head swiveled from the machine to Dr. Stern’s face in startled concern.</p><p>She gave him her second small smile in as many weeks, “He hears you. Talk to him. Heaven knows he hasn’t been listening to me.”</p><p>She let Hank visit as often as he liked from then on, hospital policy be damned. Connor’s recovery reversed direction and hopeful signs emerged with increasing frequency.</p><p>“He’s going to wake up,” she dropped the information into Hank’s lap weeks later as if it was as weightless as a pair of rolled- up socks. “He’ll have a long road to rehabilitation, but he’s made remarkable progress—much better than anyone expected at the start.” Hank stared at her openmouthed in an excellent imitation of a mounted bass.</p><p>After sucking in several lungfuls of air, he gave her a shaky laugh, “Doc, you’ve gotta work on that bedside manner. You could give a man a heart attack.”</p><p>She <em>tsked </em>but didn’t disabuse him of the notion, “You’d be in good hands if your heart failed you in my surgery wing.”</p><p>He blinked at her once before his face split around gut-busting laughter, “Jesus, doc.” He fit the words in-between lingering chuckles before growing more sober, “How do you know?”</p><p>Her face wrinkled in irritation and Hank rushed to head off her ire, “Are you sure?” She released a quiet <em>ah</em> of understanding before giving him a small, firm nod.</p><p>Connor’s return to consciousness hadn’t been as smooth as his doctors had hoped. Only Dr. Stern seemed unsurprised by her patient’s stubborn refusal to resurface from his half trauma, half medicine-induced coma. Connor’s vitals didn’t so much as budge until she strode straight through her colleagues with Hank in tow.</p><p>They muttered darkly, but she ignored the lot of bootlickers. She wasn’t interested in impressing self-absorbed hospital administrators. She had a patient to heal and she knew what brand of medicine worked best for him.</p><p>She motioned for Hank to approach with slight annoyance. He was lingering in the doorway as if the group of muttering specialists was spooking him.</p><p>“Ask him,” she ordered bluntly, taking a massive gamble with little to gain by it.</p><p>“Ask him what?” Hank mumbled the words without much thought behind them. He was watching Connor’s chest rise and fall under his own steam with naked amazement. The young man was attractive enough as it was, but the removal of a ventilator did wonders for everyone’s appearance.</p><p>“Ask him to wake up,” she had tried to remain patient, but she knew they were running out of time before her puffed-up peacock of a boss came tearing into the room, demanding answers and causing an unnecessary scene.</p><p>Hank glanced at her once in reproach but didn’t argue. He took Connor’s hand in his like a delicate chrysalis, “Connor?” The dark mutterings of unfamiliar physicians behind him burst into an immediate buzz of excitement as Connor’s eyelids fluttered.</p><p>“Con?” Hank spoke the word gently and the room began to hold its collective breath.</p><p>Connor’s eyebrows nudged one and other in confusion as his lips quivered around a half-formed sound, “<em>Ha</em>…?”</p><p>What little energy Connor had mustered fled him following his brief return to consciousness. Dr. Stern had forewarned Hank that true awakening would likely happen in fits and starts. Hank doesn’t say it—he knows it’s absurd if not outright impossible—but he can’t shake the feeling Connor had tried to say his name.</p><p>Standing in the doorway, watching the pair of them, Dr. Stern finds herself wondering the same thing. The intercom nags at her again and she sighs. Tugging her surgical gloves a little higher, she almost doesn’t notice the ache in her skin. She knew what it felt like to play with fire and feel its burn. She’d almost succumbed to the flames once herself but burst with a fury from the ashes.</p><p>She’d fought tooth and nail, endured agonizing physical therapy, and surpassed every expectation of her recovery. She’d dedicated her schooling and career to giving others a second chance. She didn’t lose patients often, but the ones she did haunted her dreams. The youngest ones gave her nightmares, but she imagined Connor would give her hell if she lost him after so much time and effort.</p><p>She could always tell when she met another who’d come back from the brink. There was no medical basis for it and she didn’t mention it to her colleagues. They already thought of her as strange and cold. She doesn’t care what the kiss-asses she works with would think of her hypothesis. She can see the obvious conclusion playing out in front of her.</p><p>Her patience is worn thin and she’s harsher with the both of them than they deserve, but this is the part of her job she likes least. She’s cured Connor of his worst afflictions. The rest is up to time, specialists, and Connor’s will.</p><p>“Hey, doc?” She jumps in surprise, not realizing she’d been staring without seeing. She glances from Hank to Connor and exhales in understanding at his hushed tone. Connor’s fallen asleep and she ushers Hank into the hall.</p><p>“How’s our patient today, Hank?” She tries for a friendly comradery that sounds as false as it feels on her tongue.</p><p>Hank snorts, “Fair enough attempt, but try not to sound like you’re eating slugs next time.” She glowers at him and Hank clucks his tongue, “There’s the woman I know.”</p><p>She smiles begrudgingly in acknowledgment before walking Hank through the next steps, “He’ll be moved to another floor soon and they’ll begin rehabilitation in earnest. I’m not going to sugar coat it—”</p><p>“Do you ever?” Hank chides in good humor and she continues as if uninterrupted.</p><p>“It’s going to be rough. Even if he’s persistent and does everything they say, he may never walk again. The odds of a full return of functionality are slim.” She lets the statement linger without agenda, interested to see what Hank does with the information. She’d been in Connor’s place once. She knows the grueling rigors of physical therapy, stretches, and confused nerves sending tongues of fire to lick at atrophied muscles. She knows it and does not envy Connor his position.</p><p>Hank turns to look over his shoulder as if he can see Connor through the wood door. He exhales heavily, “Yeah. I know.” Dr. Stern arches one skeptical eyebrow and Hank gestures at his left shoulder, “Took a bullet to the shoulder in my 30s. Ugly thing. Bullet fragments, torn muscle, and a shattered something or other. Don’t rightly remember anymore, but I came damn close to forced retirement that year. Son of a bitch still aches before a rainstorm.”</p><p>A gargantuan nurse with closely cropped dark curls and a hard part jerks his head in Hank’s direction at the excessive profanity. Hank holds his hands up in an apologetic gesture and the nurse returns to his charting.</p><p>“Then you have some idea of what he’s in for,” Amanda picks up the conversation, and Hank nods. She itches with the need to know Hank’s next steps. It’s none of her concern, but she can’t stand loose ends. Whether he continues to visit Connor shouldn’t make any difference to her but—</p><p>“So will I still be seeing you around or do I get to bother someone new about bending the hospital visiting hour rules?” Something unclenches under Dr. Stern’s ribs. Hank’s an honest man and a good one from what she’s gathered. He has his own baggage, but he’s been instrumental in Connor’s recovery. It’s what she tells herself when the logical portion of her mind asks why it matters.</p><p>“You’ll be dealing with Luther starting next week,” she gestures to the nurse who’d given Hank the stink-eye just moments before.</p><p>“Greeeeeeeat,” Hank mutters under his breath and Dr. Stern snorts.</p><p>When Hank gives her a nonplussed look, she clarifies, “Luther is protective, but he’s far less caustic than I. You’ll get along just fine.” She checks her watch then her beeping pager and rolls her eyes, “It seems I’m urgently needed in Mr. Kamski’s office. Yet again.”</p><p>Hank’s eyes drift upward toward the intercom system and he mutters a sound that might be the word <em>prick</em>. Amanda’s cheeks rise in an agreeing smile, “Quite. It’s been…interesting to know you, Hank.”</p><p>Hank laughs through his nose before groping at his back pocket, “Been meaning to ask you now for ages. What’s your full name, doc?”</p><p>She tilts her head in question, but answers all the same, “Amanda Stern.”</p><p>Hank taps away at his phone, sounding it out as he goes, “’Man-da. Got it.”</p><p>An irritated tremor ripples over her features, “No. <em>Amanda</em> Stern.”</p><p>Hank gives her a cocky, lopsided grin and she sees a hint of the charmer he must’ve been in his prime, “Whatever you say, Man.”</p><p>“Goodbye, <em>Henry</em>,” she quips back with a pretentious inclination of her head.</p><p>Hank’s grin broadens into a smile and he bobs his head in return, “Don’t ever change, doc. See ya around.”</p><p>He doesn’t see her again. It’s something she makes sure of following Connor’s discharge from her care. Those two had gotten too close and she’d taken risks that make less and less sense with each passing day.</p><p>Still, she watches the videos of Connor’s physical therapy. He agreed to record his sessions given how unprecedented his survival much less recovery of any function of his limbs was. She witnesses Hank’s whoop of excitement the first time Connor takes a wobbling step. She wouldn’t call it a step, but Connor’s foot shuffled forward a scant inch as he leaned heavily on a walker. It had come after months of leaps as well as false starts. Hank’s elated reaction never fails to pull a smile to Amanda’s face. From Connor’s first toe wiggle to his first clumsy handshake, Hank’s cheerleader routine was always worth watching. Connor’s strength returned faster to his upper body than his lower extremities, but his improvement was significant all the same.</p><p>The setbacks are harder to watch. There are ugly days in any recovery, even those that move at an expedited pace. The loss of control, the humiliation, the wretched unfairness of it all could overwhelm the most steadfast of hearts. There’s no audio for most of the videos, but Amanda doesn’t need to hear it to know what defeat sounds like. Connor crumples in every sense, curling away from support. She can almost hear the hurt he hurls in Hank’s direction. Misplaced aggression is common during rehabilitation.</p><p>Hank vanishes from the tapes for several weeks and Amanda considers calling him even if it’s wildly unprofessional. Connor hasn’t been her patient for almost half a year. It’s not her place to meddle.</p><p>The third time she considers calling Hank in as many days, a bouquet of roses arrive. They’re pristinely white save for one decadent, buttercream yellow bloom. The card reads, “You’re the <em>Man</em>” and she isn’t sure whether it’s a laugh or a sob choking in her throat.</p><p>She pulls out her phone and snaps a picture of the flowers after she trims them. They spread evenly in their vase like an aurora ahead of the dawn. She sends it to Hank along with a succinct note, “Thank you, *Amanda.”</p><p>She doesn’t know how they resolved the brutal argument. The tapes don’t provide intimate details, but she still feels like a trespasser anytime she reviews them. She isn’t watching for science or medicine or even to follow up on her patient. She wants them to be happy and has no notion of how to achieve it. So she watches and she hopes.</p><p>“Dr. Stern?” Luther intrudes on her thoughts. She nearly snaps out something sharp and callous until he murmurs, “You didn’t respond to my knock.”</p><p>With the wind sufficiently sucked out of her indignant sails, she pulls her reading glasses from her face to rub at the bridge of her nose, “I’ve been preoccupied. How can I help you, Luther?”</p><p>Luther glances up as if the nitwit running this hospital can hear him through the intercom, “Mr. Kams—I’m not supposed to—You’re gonna want to see this.” He’s gone before she can pin him in place with her questions. She doesn’t need instructions or a map to know where to go.</p><p>They can’t see her through the glass. She allows herself to press her gloved hand to the pane as she watches.</p><p>“You can do this,” Hank murmurs in equal parts reassurance, comfort, and calm support. “C’mon, Con. You’ve got this.”</p><p>Sweat beads heavily on Connor’s brow and his hair is longer in person than it appears on tape. It’s curlier than Amanda expected and she finds herself wishing she had a comb to run through it. She has no idea how long they’ve been at this, but Luther wouldn’t risk Elijah’s pompous wrath if he didn’t think it was worth the trouble.</p><p>Connor’s dark eyes lift from the ground and determination etches into every freckle and shadow on his face. His fingers tense so tightly on the twin handrails flanking him, Amanda wouldn’t be surprised if he left his fingerprints behind.</p><p>“Has he done it before?” Amanda whispers aloud and Luther squeezes her shoulder in response. The distance between them isn’t significant by average standards, but it may as well be a mile for Connor. Amanda estimates five strides for the unimpaired. Likely double that for Connor. Her chest aches and it takes several breathless moments for her to realize she isn’t taking in air.  </p><p>“Let go,” she breathes the words onto the glass. Her urgency scatters across its smooth surface and Luther’s fingers tense a little tighter. She reaches up to grip his hand. It feels like weakness, but she appreciates his support. A business-like voice nags at the back of her mind, wondering why Luther is in here with her and not out there with his patient. She ignores it. It’s a tactic she’s employed with increasing frequency these past six months.</p><p>Her heart pounds with thunderous force and each second Connor remains immobile erodes her exhausted nerves to the point of fracturing.</p><p>“Hank?” Connor’s arms shake, but it’s not from the strain of holding himself upright. Uncertainty licks at every letter and Amanda droops under the crushing weight of doubt. This oscillation from confidence to hesitation was the primary reason she chose to work with patients who spend the majority of their tenure in her care asleep. The setbacks were too—</p><p>“Watch them,” Luther’s warm voice rumbles so quietly it’s hardly more than a hum.</p><p>Hank doesn’t suffer from the insecurity clogging the rooms on either side of the glass. He gives Connor a winning smile that erases years from his face. He looks healthier than when Amanda first met him. It wasn’t as obvious on camera, but his complexion is brighter. He carries himself differently too as if he unloaded burdens no one else could see.</p><p>Hank extends a hand, shortening the distance between them, “I’m right here, Con.”</p><p>“But, what if—” Connor cuts himself off and eyes the ground warily as if it might leap up and bite him.</p><p>“I won’t let you fall,” Hank says the words with the surety of a man who knows he’s right. Connor opens his mouth, but he can’t seem to decide between arguing or seeking more assurances.</p><p>Hank lowers his voice like a safety net for Connor to see, “I’ve got you.”</p><p>If Amanda hadn’t forgotten how to blink, she would have missed the moment Connor released the smooth wooden handrails. Luther dictates the time and date to his watch and a small part of Amanda’s brain approves at his attention to detail. The vast majority of her conscious mind, however, stares at Connor’s feet with a sharp precision that rivals her surgical tools.</p><p>The first step comes up shorter than Amanda’s expectations, but Connor pivots to take his next steps without wavering. By his fifth step, Amanda isn’t sure who’s breathing hardest between the four of them. Connor’s face contorts with effort and she can read the panic in his next two steps. They’re clumsier and less coordinated. Connor’s eyes remain fixed on Hank and his outstretched hand.</p><p>Hank sees Connor’s struggle and his body cants forward as if he wants to lunge and sweep Connor into his arms. He remains firmly planted, urging Connor to do what he <em>knows</em> is possible.</p><p>Connor’s next step is a shuffle and his chest rabbits up and down like terrified prey.</p><p>“He’s not going to make it.” Amanda almost turns her head to address the unwelcome, snide voice. Her head twitches, but her gaze remains fixed on Connor’s slow advance.</p><p>“You’ve been wrong about the boy from the start, Elijah. What on earth makes you think you’re right this time?” The words slap her boss across the face and his cheeks burn from the sting.</p><p>“This is <em>my</em> hospital, Amanda. You may think you have enough clout—” she tunes him out as he threatens her career in a sad bid for her attention.</p><p>Hank raises his other hand to join the first and Elijah falls silent as if Hank’s words turned down the volume on Elijah’s voice, “Deep breaths, Con.” Hank sucks in a long, slow lungful of air followed by a smooth exhalation and Connor mirrors him.</p><p>Hank gives him a little reassuring nod before adjusting his stance, never lowering his reach, “Don’t worry about your feet. Just breathe.”</p><p>Connor lurches back into motion, still turtle-slow, but with renewed vigor. Determination churns in the muscle and sinew, urging them to comply with the simple task of reaching the finish line. Amanda had estimated it would take Connor ten steps to do it; he does it in nine.</p><p>Connor’s strength fades with breathtaking abruptness as the last vestiges of his adrenaline disperse into mist. He wobbles on unsteady legs before reeling into Hank’s waiting arms. His fingers close around the open collar of Hank’s loud, striped shirt. His breath comes out heavy and humid against Hank’s collarbone as he sags.</p><p>True to his words, Hank’s arms close around him before Connor’s knees can give out and send him crashing to the floor, “I’ve got you.” Hank repeats the phrase and Luther emits a whoop of delight at his patient’s success. Amanda’s gloved hand remains firm against the glass, watching without intruding.</p><p>Connor knows he’s wrinkling Hank’s shirt to the point of ruin, but he doesn’t relax his hold. He’s exhausted in ways he can’t describe, but he lifts his head against the heavy weight of fatigue pulling it down. He hasn’t contrived a way to get this close before and he doesn’t intend to waste it.</p><p>The blue of Hank’s eyes is more intense at this scant distance and he has more eyelashes than Connor’s frazzled brain can think to count. He braces to drag himself upright. This time, Hank meets him halfway. Hank’s lips are soft and the scent of woodsy spiced apples imprints on Connor’s memory of their first kiss.</p><p>Connor’s brain swims woozily as a tingle erupts from the base of his skull. It dances lazily down his spine and limbs in a pleasant waltz. He sways alarmingly, but Hank adjusts his grip and widens his stance. Connor knows how heavy he is—he’s spent months learning to carry his own weight—but Hank’s gentle hold suggests he doesn’t notice the effort.</p><p>“Wait,” Amanda murmurs quietly, lifting her hand from the glass in a halting gesture. Luther’s grip freezes on the door handle, already half-turned in its latch. His eyes flicker from Amanda to the two men entwined on the physical therapy runway. Duty and concern for his patient’s wellbeing after so much exertion tug at his conscience, but he drops his hand to his side.</p><p>There will be more setbacks and blistering failures. There will be fights and apologies, barely measurable gains, and huge leaps. There will be victories Hank misses as his paid leave of absence following Connor’s accident ends and his vacation time dwindles.  There will be times that Hank’s absence cleaves Connor to the bone. But, most of all, there <em>will</em> be time.</p><p>Amanda isn’t on the schedule the day the hospital deems Connor well enough for outpatient care. Luther sends her a hasty text that goes unread. She sits in the parking lot with her car humming quietly. The clover warps and wilts under the heat and fumes expelled from the exhaust pipe, but the A/C keeps her pleasantly cool while she waits.</p><p>Her waxy, scarred hands clench around the steering wheel when a police cruiser pulls into the pickup circle. Hank cuts a more dashing figure than she would have guessed in his uniform. He fills it out comfortably, and she suspects he needed a tailor to accommodate the broad expanse of his chest and shoulders.</p><p>Luther may be the only man Amanda knows to rival Hank in height and breadth. His white scrubs only serve to accentuate his size as he holds the door wide. She barely recognizes Connor in his street clothes. She had grown used to seeing him in hospital gowns or comfortable, loose workout gear for physical therapy.</p><p>He dresses a bit silly in her opinion, but then, so does Hank. Hank waits by the car like a coachman ready to serve a prince. Connor’s gait is still slow by most people’s standards, but it’s not so languid as to draw attention. He clutches the handrail, stubbornly refusing to utilize the ramp available directly to his right. He takes the steps stiffly with a significant deal of awkwardness. Amanda doubts he could handle a full flight of stairs, but he manages the meager few outside the hospital doors well enough.</p><p>When he’s within speaking distance, Hank extends his hand. Connor ignores it, reaching out to tug Hank’s tie instead. Hank pitches forward at the unexpected pull. Even from across the parking lot, Amanda can see the blinding brilliance of Connor’s smile before their mouths meet. High overhead and much too early in the afternoon for anyone to notice, the fluorescent street light flickers twice in farewell as the lamp goes out.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm on <a href="https://twitter.com/WorseMake">Twitter</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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